Ambush On The Vulture’s Claw - TCW [F/S1] - Battle Packs

R2-D2 is lost during a space battle, and Anakin is determined to find him. The Jedi spots a Trandoshan scavenger ship near the debris field, but the ship's shady operator, Gha Nachkt, denies finding an R2 unit. Anakin and his Padawan Ahsoka encounter plenty of deception and danger as they search the salvage vessel for Artoo.

The Ambush On The Vulture’s
ClawBattle Packs set from Hasbro is exactly
what the paradigm should be for all future ones.
It gives both the kid and collector something
to salivate over while providing great value
for the dollar and even better play value since
the characters have been culled from a very exciting
scene in The Clone Wars television series.
It includes an altogether new figure, a repaint,
and two reworked figures with new soft-goods.
This provides enough "newness" and
variety to all who buy it and makes the set a
very worthwhile purchase. When Hasbro dishes
out repackaged figures without tweaking something
on them, it feels like we are getting burned
a little bit. But when we get something like
this Battle Packs set, it makes everything right
in the universe. We have seen a lot of "repackaged" figures
in previous lines, but Hasbro (with few exceptions)
seems to have reinvented their approach to new
Battle Packs (thankfully) for the most part with
the launch of The Clone Wars and The
Legacy Collection toy lines. Small vehicles
and larger accessories are all relatively new
additions to the standard four or five pack of
basic figures that makes up the whole set. But
if we’re only getting four figures, then
we should be getting something new inside to
warrant its purchase. We sincerely hope that
the Ambush On The Vulture's Claw Battle
Packs set will be the template or guide from which
all future sets will imitate and follow.

Let's
start off talking about the new figure in this
set! Gha Nachkt is a pudgy Trandoshan with a
severe jaw under-bite. Appearing much more like
an overweight Saurin than someone who is related
to the athletic Bossk, Gha Nachkt's corpulent frame matches
his extremely greedy behavioral patterns. He
has extraordinarily long arms and long fingernails
and he is a bit short for a Transdoshan obviously.
But he has that reptilian and seedy presence
to him that made Bossk a huge hit to Star Wars
fans. Regardless, he is magnificently sculpted
and we wish we could have attained him as part
of the basic figure line. There are so many details
to appreciate with this figure. Take for example
the "familiar" arm patches on his shoulders
which are very reminiscent of the designs that Bossk had on his uniform. The other figures are
awesome too in this set. Ahsoka Tano and Anakin
Skywalker are definitely simple repacks but they
come with well-tailored soft-goods. Although
the soft-goods do not really match what was seen
in the TV series, they nonetheless look fantastic
on the figures and the ponchos serve their purpose
well. (They look a little too Episode I/Qui-Gon
Jinn for our liking because in the TV episode
they were solid without any stripes. Ahsoka and
Anakin also come outfitted with their respective
lightsabers. The accessories are light as they
should be here. The IG-86 Assassin Droid is worthy
of taking note too because the droid has been repainted
from its original 2008 TCW IG-86 Assassin Droid (No. 18) single carded appearance we received previously. Looking
much darker and with less scratching detail than
the basic figures, IG-86 is a great way to build
your army while adding differentiability and
uniqueness. You may also be interested that it
comes with a third color for guns and this time
it is black. So we have gotten this droid with
gray, blue and now black guns. It seems that
Hasbro cannot make up their mind. As a cohesive
set, the characters complement each other wonderfully
and we dare say that there are enough new products
in here to totally make this purchase worth every
penny.

Battle
Packs are arguably one of the best mediums and
assortments Hasbro has created to get us out
multiple figures at once. As long as they keep
the price tag in check and the ideas interesting,
this will undoubtedly be one of the most successful
sub-lines we will ever receive. And we hope that
Hasbro focuses the sets based on a scene found
anywhere in the various Star Wars universe. Recreating
scenes from Star Wars is one of the most important
things to collectors (and even kids) so we hope
that Hasbro makes it a priority to follow in
this fashion. Since their official inception in 2005 during the Revenge Of The Sith line (Hasbro released many four figure multipacks before them),
Battle Packs have been a mainstay in the collection
and both Hasbro and collectors see the beautiful
fruit they produce (for the most part - there
have been some bombs) and they really provide
a nice angle to collecting. Their popularity
continually grows and this will guarantee a strong performance of the line. The Clone Wars is
a very rich source from which Hasbro can continue
to cull these great Battle Packs, so we expect
to continue receiving some pretty intriguing
ones based on the television series as time moves
forward. And if Hasbro can maintain including
at least one new sculpt (or a significant repaint
as an acceptable substitute) in them we are fairly
confident that they will maintain both kid and
collector support in a potentially endless line.
Rumor has it that this wave of Battle Packs may
not be shipping for as long as we would wish.
The line look went to an official change during the summer od 2009 from blue to red and since Ambush On The
Vulture's
Claw is shipping with Geonosis Assault (and
are both in blue packaging) we don't expect to
see them as plentiful as previous ones. Now is
the time to act!